All this had been so sudden that, to use the trite phrase--for no
other is so expressive--it was like a dream. I felt an absolute, an
imperious want of solitude, of the open air. The swell of gratitude
almost stifled me--the room did not seem large enough for my big
heart. In early youth, if we find it difficult to control our
feelings, so we find it difficult to vent them in the presence of
others. On the spring side of twenty, if any thing affects us, we rush
to lock ourselves up in our room, or get away into the streets or the
fields; in our earlier years we are still the savages of Nature, and
we do as the poor brute does,--the wounded stag leaves the herd, and,
if there is any thing on a dog's faithful heart, he slinks away into a
corner.
Accordingly, I stole out of the hotel, and wandered through the
streets, which were quite deserted. It was about the first hour of
dawn, the most comfortless hour there is, especially in London! But I
only felt freshness in the raw air, and soothing in the desolate
stillness. The love my uncle inspired was very remarkable in its
nature: it was not like that quiet affection with which those advanced
in life must usually content themselves, but connected with the more
vivid interest that youth awakens. There was in him still so much of
vivacity and fire, in his errors and crotchets so much of the
self-delusion of youth, that one could scarce fancy him other than
young. Those Quixotic exaggerated notions of honour, that romance of
sentiment, which no hardship, care, grief, disappointment, could wear
away, (singular in a period when, at two-and-twenty, young men declare
themselves _blasés_!) seemed to leave him all the charm of boyhood. A
season in London had made me more a man of the world, older in heart
than he was. Then, the sorrow that gnawed him with such silent
sternness. No--Captain Roland was one of those men who seize hold of
your thoughts, who mix themselves up with your lives. The idea that
Roland should die--die with the load at his heart unlightened, was one
that seemed to take a spring out of the wheels of nature, an object
out of the aims of life--of my life at least. For I had made it one of
the ends of my existence to bring back the son to the father, and
restore the smile, that must have been gay once, to the downward curve
of that iron lip. But Roland was now out of danger,--and yet, like one
who has escaped shipwreck, I trembled to look back on the danger past;
the voice of the devouring deep still boomed in my ears. While rapt in
my reveries, I stopped mechanically to hear a clock strike--four; and,
looking round, I perceived that I had wandered from the heart of the
city, and was in one of the streets that lead out of the Strand.
Immediately before me, on the door-steps of a large shop, whose closed
shutters wore as obstinate a stillness as if they had guarded the
secrets of seventeen centuries in a street in Pompeii,--reclined a
form fast asleep; the arm propped on the hard stone supporting the
head, and the limbs uneasily strewn over the stairs. The dress of the
slumberer was travel-stained, tattered, yet with the remains of a
certain pretence: an air of faded, shabby, penniless gentility made
poverty more painful; because it seemed to indicate unfitness to
grapple with it. The face of this person was hollow and pale, but its
expression, even in sleep, was fierce and hard. I drew near and
nearer; I recognised the countenance, the regular features, the raven
hair, even a peculiar gracefulness of posture: the young man whom I
had met at the inn by the way-side, and who had left me alone with the
Savoyard and his mice in the churchyard, was before me. I remained
behind the shadow of one of the columns of the porch, leaning against
the area rails, and irresolute whether or not so slight an
acquaintance justified me in waking the sleeper--when a policeman,
suddenly emerging from an angle in the street, terminated my
deliberations with the decision of his practical profession; for he
laid hold of the young man's arm and shook it roughly,--"You must not
lie here, get up and go home!" The sleeper woke with a quick start,
rubbed his eyes, looked round, and fixed them upon the policeman so
haughtily that that discriminating functionary probably thought that
it was not from sheer necessity that so improper a couch had been
selected, and with an air of greater respect he said, "You have been
drinking, young man,--can you find your way home?"
"Yes," said the youth, resettling himself--"you see I have found it!"
"By the Lord Harry!" muttered the policeman, "if he ben't going to
sleep again! Come, come! walk on, or I must walk you off."
My old acquaintance turned round. "Policeman," said he, with a strange
sort of smile, "what do you think this lodging is worth?--I don't say
for the night, for you see that is over, but for the next two hours?
The lodging is primitive, but it suits me; I should think a shilling
would be a fair price for it, eh?"
"You love your joke, sir," said the policeman, with a brow much
relaxed, and opening his hand mechanically.
"Say a shilling, then--it is a bargain! I hire it of you upon credit.
Good-night, and call me at six o'clock."
With that the young man settled himself so resolutely, and the
policeman's face exhibited such bewilderment, that I burst out
laughing, and came from my hiding-place.
The policeman looked at me. "Do you know this--this"--
"This gentleman?" said I, gravely. "Yes, you may leave him to me;" and
I slipped the price of the lodging into the policeman's hand. He
looked at the shilling--he looked at me--he looked up the street and
down the street--shook his head, and walked off. I then approached the
youth, touched him, and said--"Can you remember me, sir; and what have
you done with Mr Peacock?"
STRANGER (_after a pause_.)--I remember you; your name is CAXTON.
PISISTRATUS.--And yours?
STRANGER.--Poor-devil, if you ask my pockets--pockets, which are the
symbols of man; Dare-devil, if you ask my heart. (_Surveying me from
head to foot_)--The world seems to have smiled on you, Mr Caxton! Are
you not ashamed to speak to a wretch lying on the stones?--but, to be
sure, no one sees you.
PISISTRATUS (_sententiously_.)--Had I lived in the last century, I
might have found Samuel Johnson lying on the stones.
STRANGER (_rising_.)--You have spoilt my sleep; you had a right, since
you paid for the lodging. Let me walk with you a few paces; you need
not fear--I do not pick pockets--yet!
PISISTRATUS.--You say the world has smiled on me; I fear it has
frowned on you. I don't say "courage," for you seem to have enough of
that; but I say "_patience_," which is the rarer quality of the two.
STRANGER.--Hem! (_Again looking at me keenly_)--Why is it that you
stop to speak to me--one of whom you know nothing, or worse than
nothing?
PISISTRATUS.--Because I have often thought of you; because you
interest me; because--pardon me--I would help you if I can--that is,
if you want help.
STRANGER.--Want!--I am one want! I want sleep--I want food;--I want
the patience you recommend--patience to starve and rot. I have
travelled from Paris to Boulogne on foot, with twelve sous in my
pocket. Out of those twelve sous in my pocket I saved four; with the
four I went to a billiard-room at Boulogne; I won just enough to pay
my passage and buy three rolls. You see I only require capital in
order to make a fortune. If with four sous I can win ten francs in a
night, what could I win with a capital of four sovereigns, and in the
course of a year?--that is an application of the Rule of Three which
my head aches too much to calculate just at present. Well, those
three rolls have lasted me three days; the last crumb went for supper
last night. Therefore, take care how you offer me money, (for that is
what men mean by help.) You see I have no option but to take it. But I
warn you, don't expect gratitude!--I have none in me!
PISISTRATUS.--You are not so bad as you paint yourself. I would do
something more for you, if I can, than lend you the little I have to
offer: will you be frank with me?
STRANGER.--That depends--I have been frank enough hitherto, I think.
PISISTRATUS.--True; so I proceed without scruple. Don't tell me your
name or your condition, if you object to such confidence; but tell me
if you have relations to whom you can apply? You shake your head:
well, then, are you willing to work for yourself? or is it only at the
billiard-table--pardon me--that you can try to make four sous produce
ten francs?
STRANGER (_musing_.)--I understand you; I have never worked yet--I
abhor work. But I have no objection to try if it is in me.
PISISTRATUS.--It is in you: a man who can walk from Paris to Boulogne
with twelve sous in his pocket, and save four for a purpose--who can
stake those four on the cool confidence in his own skill, even at
billiards--who can subsist for three days on three rolls--and who, on
the fourth day, can wake from the stones of a capital with an eye and
a spirit as proud as yours, has in him all the requisites to subdue
fortune.
STRANGER.--Do you work?--you?
PISISTRATUS.--Yes--and hard.
STRANGER.--I am ready to work, then.
PISISTRATUS.--Good. Now, what can you do?
STRANGER (_with his odd smile_.)--Many things useful. I can split a
bullet on a penknife: I know the secret tierce of Coulon, the
fencing-master: I can speak two languages (besides English) like a
native, even to their slang: I know every game in the cards: I can act
comedy, tragedy, farce: I can drink down Bacchus himself: I can make
any woman I please in love with me--that is, any woman good-for-nothing.
Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this--wear kid gloves, and
set up a cabriolet?--you see my wishes are modest!
PISISTRATUS.--You speak two languages, you say, like a
native,--French, I suppose, is one of them?
STRANGER.--Yes.
PISISTRATUS.--Will you teach it?
STRANGER (_haughtily_.)--No. _Je suis gentilhomme_, which means more
or less than a gentleman. _Gentilhomme_ means well born, because free
born,--teachers are slaves!
PISISTRATUS (_unconsciously imitating Mr Trevanion_.)--Stuff!
STRANGER (_looks angry, and then laughs_.)--Very true; stilts don't
suit shoes like these! But I cannot teach: heaven help those I should
teach!--Anything else?
PISISTRATUS.--Anything else!--you leave me a wide margin. You know
French thoroughly;--to write as well as speak?--that is much. Give me
some address where I can find you,--or will you call on me?
STRANGER.--No! Any evening at dusk I will meet you. I have no address
to give; and I cannot show these rags at another man's door.
PISISTRATUS.--At nine in the evening, then, and here in the Strand, on
Thursday next. I may then have found something that will suit you.
Meanwhile--(_slides his purse into the Stranger's hand_. N.B.--_Purse
not very full._)
STRANGER, with the air of one conferring a favour, pockets the purse;
and there is something so striking in the very absence of all emotion
at so accidental a rescue from starvation, that PISISTRATUS
exclaims,--
"I don't know why I should have taken this fancy to you, Mr
Dare-devil, if that be the name that please you best. The wood you are
made of seems cross-grained, and full of knots; and yet, in the hands
of a skilful carver, I think it would be worth much."
STRANGER (_startled_.)--Do you? do you? None, I believe, ever thought
that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could
make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken
this fancy to me,--the strong sympathise with the strong. You, too,
could subdue fortune!
PISISTRATUS.--Stop; if so--if there is congeniality between us, then
liking should be reciprocal. Come, say that; for half my chance of
helping you is in my power to touch your heart.
STRANGER (_evidently softened_.)--If I were as great a rogue as I
ought to be, my answer would be easy enough. As it is, I delay
it.--Adieu--on Thursday.
STRANGER vanishes in the labyrinth of alleys round Leicester Square.